Warhorse

Chapter 15

The man standing beside Ferrol was tall and gangling, with the sort of faraway look in his eyes that Roman had always associated with heavy drug use. That drugs were not involved, though, was clear from the orders the man had brought aboard the Amity with him.

In a way, Roman thought as he skimmed the orders, that almost made it worse. It meant that that look was a normal part of the man and would probably be with him for the entire mission.

Flipping off the reader, Roman turned his full attention to his visitor. “Well, Mr.

Demothi,” he said. “An intriguing experiment, to be sure. You’ll forgive me if I remain skeptical.”

Nodin Demothi’s expression remained serene. “The Senate was skeptical, too, Captain,” he said. “As was the Starforce Admiralty before them, and the Sinshahli Psych Sciences Institute before them, and the University before them.” He nodded toward the orders. “None of them remained so for long.”

“Perhaps,” Roman said. “On the other hand, dolphins and whales share a home planet and a great deal of history with humanity. Space horses are totally alien.”

Demothi shrugged minutely. “So are Tampies, but I was able to communicate with several of them during my time on Traklee-Kyn.”

“Which may mean even less than your cetacean studies,” Roman pointed out.

“Your Tampy partner at the other end of the amplifier helmet could have been doing all the work.”

Deep down, Roman realized, part of him was trying to spark a reaction—any reaction—from the man. He’d have done better with a lump of concrete. “I understand your disbelief, Captain,” Demothi said, his face and body language remaining totally placid. “I’ve run into the same hostility a thousand times, from a thousand different people, and my detractors have always come away silenced. All I ask is the chance to prove myself.”

And unfortunately, Roman had no choice but to give him that chance. The orders Demothi had brought with him were clear, explicit, and without any latitude whatsoever. “My orders guarantee you that chance, Mr. Demothi,” he told the other, a sour taste in his mouth. “But understand this: if I find any reason to suspect that your contract is endangering the life or well-being of the calf, that one chance will be all you get. Is that clear?”

Demothi pulled himself to his full height, a gesture that would have been a lot more impressive in a man half again his weight. “One chance will be all I’ll need.”

“Fine.” Roman glanced at Ferrol, who after making the introductions had stayed carefully out of the conversation. “I presume you’ve made arrangements for Mr.

Demothi’s quarters?”

“Yes, sir,” Ferrol said, his voice and face neutral. He needn’t have bothered; it didn’t take any of Demothi’s alleged psychic powers to see Ferrol’s anti-Tampy friends moving in this. “I’ve assigned him to the number four cabin in D section.

The one vacated when the Starforce shuffled the organizational table and decided we really didn’t need four geologists anymore.”

“Such convenient timing,” Roman commented dryly.

He watched Ferrol’s rigid lack of reaction for a moment, then turned back to Demothi. “You ever been on a military spaceship before?”

“I spent a few days on one during my Starforce tests,” Demothi said. “I’ve also flown several times on passenger liners. Lately, much of my travel has been with Tampy ships.”

“Well, you’re going to be in for some adjustment, then,” Roman said, pressing a button on his desk console. “Life aboard Amity doesn’t resemble a passenger cruise much—more scheduled and less private, for starters. We’ll be in free-fall a fair amount of the time, too.”

Demothi’s eyes flicked to the viewport, where the stars were tumbling past in time to Amity’s axial rotation, and quickly looked away. “I understand. I can handle it.”

“We’ll also probably be in deep space for several months,” Roman added. The door buzzed and slid open to reveal a young crewer. “The mean time of our mission has been ninety-eight days, the longest having been 134.”

“I understand,” Demothi said again.

Roman pursed his lips. He hadn’t really expected to scare Demothi off his ship, but it had still been worth a try. “As long as you know what you’re getting into.” He gestured to the waiting crewer. “Kliment here will escort you to your quarters and help you stow your gear. We’ll be staying in orbit around Solomon for another five hours.”

Demothi ducked his head in an abbreviated bow. “Thank you, Captain. I’ll do my best to stay out of everyone’s way.” Turning, he and Kliment left, the door sliding shut behind them.

Roman turned his attention to Ferrol. “So. Opinion, Commander?”

“About what, sir?” Ferrol asked.

“Demothi, of course. You think he has any chance?”

Ferrol cocked an eyebrow, “The Senate must think he has,” he said. “I can’t see them going this far out on a limb on wishful thinking alone.”

“True,” Roman agreed. “Unless, of course, he’s here for some other purpose entirely.”

Ferrol might have twitched. Roman couldn’t tell for sure. “What other purpose could there be?” the other asked. “A secret inspection of some sort?”

“I’d think that highly unlikely,” Roman shook his head. “The only thing Amity does of any real interest these days is to midwife space horse calvings, and all except that first one have been fully recorded. What would an observer see that the cameras haven’t?”

“The crew’s performance, maybe,” Ferrol suggested. “Or possibly the Senate’s still interested in human/Tampy interactions. That was the original reason for putting this ship into space, after all.”

It was indeed… and with only four voyages under Amity’s belt, the most optimistic of the pro-Tampies had probably already conceded defeat on that point. Not even the excitement of being part of something as rare and awesome as a space horse calving was enough to dampen the anti-Tampy feelings that invariably grew among the human crewers; and despite the prestige and public attention the Amity was starting to attract, less than thirty percent of any given crew signed up for the following mission. Aside from the senior officers and the Tampies themselves, only ten of Amity’s original crew had made it through all four of its voyages. “I seriously doubt that anyone still thinks of us in those terms anymore,” Roman told Ferrol. “No—whatever Demothi’s here for, it has to involve the calving. If all he needed was a space horse he could go to the corral at Kialinninni and take his pick.” He eyed the other. “And that includes this so-called contact experiment.”

Ferrol shrugged. “Perhaps. On the other hand, I can think of at least two reasons why you’d want to try this kind of contact with a calf first. One, because a calf might not have the same aversion to humans that they seem to develop later in life; and, two, because the calf wouldn’t be nearly as strong as a full-grown space horse.

And, of course, completely unable to Jump.”

“That last being a major point,” Roman conceded, the uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach growing stronger. It all made sense… but Ferrol had the arguments just a little bit too down pat. Which meant… what? That his friends in the Senate had briefed him on Demothi’s true mission? Or merely that he’d been thinking lately about space horse calves and their possibilities? “I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.”

“Yes, sir. I really don’t think there’s any cause for worry, though. I expect he’s really just here to try and contact the calf.”

Roman sighed. “Well, if he is, good luck to him. I’m sure we’d both agree that human control of space horses is the key to further expansion of the Cordonale—and with an eye to that, it’s probably just as well that Kennedy will be handling the lander on this calving.”

Ferrol’s poker face cracked, just a little. But enough. “Kennedy, sir?” he asked carefully.

Roman nodded. “She’s been wanting to have a shot at handling the webbing maneuvers anyway; and with the Senate so hot on “Demothi the Boy Wonder”

we’ll certainly want our best people out on the lander with him. Just in case any problems crop up.”

“Of course, sir,” Ferrol said between stiff lips. “I had, however, hoped to ask you to let me be in charge of the webbing this time around.”

Roman felt an unpleasant chill run up his back. So his vague suspicions had been right, after all. Demothi was up to something, Ferrol knew what it was… and it was something he very much wanted to be on hand to participate in.

Or else, he just didn’t want Kennedy to be there alone. Fleetingly, Roman wondered just what Ferrol’s friends had told him about Kennedy. “Well, that shouldn’t be a problem,” he said, forcing his voice to remain casual. “There’s no reason why you can’t both go.”

For a moment Ferrol seemed to be studying him, and Roman had the odd sense that his own thoughts, mirror-imaged, were running a parallel track through the other’s mind. “That should work,” Ferrol said at last. “Provided Kennedy won’t feel her capabilities are being called into question, that is.”

Roman shook his head. “She’ll be there for the helm experience,” he said. “You’ll be there because of your interest in space horse calves. That’s all there is to it.”

Another brief flicker of reaction. “Yes, sir,” Ferrol said. “Thank you, Captain.”

“Good. That’s settled, then,” Roman said, pretending he hadn’t seen anything.

“You’d best get back to the bridge now, Commander. There’s still a lot of work to do before we leave orbit.”

“Yes, sir.” Nodding, Ferrol turned and left.

For a moment afterward Roman gazed darkly at the door. So it had come at last; the anti-Tampies’ response to Amity’s unexpected breakthrough. Ferrol, Roman felt sure, he could handle if it became necessary… but Ferrol plus Demothi was another matter entirely. And if push came to shove…

Involuntarily, he shivered. What, he wondered, had Ferrol’s friends told him about Kennedy?

New faces were hardly a novelty aboard the Amity; but even so Roman expected Demothi to make something of a splash, a prediction that was borne out with a swiftness beyond his most pessimistic fears. Within an hour the news about Demothi and his—possibly—historic experiment was all over the ship; within two hours, it was the major topic of conversation in the lounges and workrooms. By the time Sso-ngu had their new space horse, Man o’ War, ease the ship out of Solomon orbit everyone seemed to have formed an opinion about the chances of success, and the arguments began to appear.

And by the time Amity made its first Jump, the man had become the punch line of at least two jokes.

It followed immediately that Demothi was going to be a major pain in the neck for all involved; but here, Roman’s expectations proved wrong. Demothi wasn’t a great deal of trouble; he was, in fact, almost exactly the opposite. Much of his time was spent on the Tampy side of the ship, discussing his upcoming contact attempt with Sso-ngu and the other Handlers and practicing with the spare amplifier helmet. He returned to the human side only for meals and sleep, and since he often ate in the solitude of his own cabin, Roman could often go days at a time without so much as passing him in a corridor. There was no particular reason Roman could see for the other’s self-imposed isolation—certainly the psych profile that had accompanied him aboard gave no hint of antisocial tendencies. The most plausible suggestion Roman heard came from Kennedy, who pointed out that Demothi might think he would stand a better chance of making a successful contact if he stayed as aloof as possible from the other humans. Given how little was really known about space horse senses, it was as good a theory as any.

Still, Demothi’s space-hermit act didn’t help his reputation among the more heavyhanded humorists aboard, and Roman was therefore not at all disappointed when Man o’ War began to show the telltale lethargy a mere sixty days into the mission.

“It’s started, all right,” Marlowe reported, fingers dancing across his keys as he ran comparisons against the data from the previous calvings. “I’d say one more Jump and a few hours’ rest and Man o’ War will be ready to become a mother.”

Roman nodded. “Good. Give Demothi a call—he may need some time to prepare.

Commander?—how’s the delivery room search going?”

Ferrol had a section of the New Cygni List on his screen; from his chair Roman could see that several of the lines were highlighted in yellow. “Working on it, sir,”

Ferrol told him. “I think… yes, here we go. NCL 11612. Little K-type about four light-years away from here. Couple of gas-giant planets, no known life, completely uninteresting.” He turned to face Roman, eyebrows raised questioningly.

“Sounds good,” Roman agreed, shifting his eyes to the helm. “Yamoto?”

“Vector worked out, Captain,” she reported promptly. “Ready to transmit to the Tampies.”

Roman nodded, feeling his stomach muscles beginning to tighten. “Do so,” he instructed her. He shifted his attention back to Ferrol, who was still watching him, and the muscles tightened a little more. “You’d best get below, Commander,” he told the other. “You’ll want to supervise the webbing team’s preflight preparations.”

“Yes, sir.” Unstrapping, Ferrol kicked off for the bridge door.

To supervise the team’s preparations, Roman thought after him, and to make your own.

Whatever those preparations would include.

Most of the physical arrangements for the calving had been completed far in advance, and the few that required waiting until the last minute were over with in less than an hour. Ferrol’s own personal last-minute checklist—consisting mainly of getting the needle gun and envelope from his cabin and slipping them into his EVA pack—took even less time.

Which left him several hours with nothing at all to do. Except think. And worry.

He’d spoken with Demothi perhaps half a dozen times since the voyage began, and had come away from each conversation progressively less certain as to what the hell the Senator was up to. Was Demothi really nothing more than what he seemed, a rather fog-bound dreamtype who the Senator had found and inveigled onto the Amity in response to Ferrol’s demands for action? Or was he, in fact, a quiet agent of the anti-Tampy forces, with some mission above and beyond the contact experiment?

None of Ferrol’s delicate conversational probes had gotten him any nearer to finding out. And the uncertainty made him nervous.

They had made the Jump to their target system, and Man o’ War had been quiescent for nearly an hour, when the call finally came. “Captain to ready room; Commander Ferrol?”

“Yes, sir,” Ferrol called toward the intercom. “Is it time?”

“It seems so, yes,” Roman told him. “The dust sweat analysis indicates that you’ve got perhaps two hours before the calf comes.”

Definitely time to get into position. “On our way, sir.”

With Kennedy and Demothi following, he led the way to the hangar deck, wondering sourly how long he’d have to wait for the two Tampies who’d be accompanying them to make their leisurely way aft. The cynicism was, for a change, wasted: even as he ducked his head and maneuvered his way through the door he saw that they were already there.

“Ffe-rho?” one grated as both turned.

“Yes,” Ferrol acknowledged. Beneath the filter mask covering half the misshapen face a corner of red and white cloth was visible… “Sso-ngu?” he tentatively identified the other.

“Yes.” The Tampy indicated his companion. “Wwis-khaa will assist.”

“Fine,” Ferrol said shortly, moving forward to take his place at the command station and keying for status readouts. It was, he realized, a revealing choice of assistants for Sso-ngu to have chosen: Wwis-khaa, according to the crew profiles, was the only Handler aboard Amity who’d had any experience with soothing space horses freshly captured in the wild. None of the previous calvings had required any such soft-touch Handling… but then, none of them had had Demothi poking around with an amplifier helmet, either. To the best of Ferrol’s knowledge none of the Tampies had raised any objections to Demothi’s experiment; but it was clear that they weren’t interested in taking any chances with him, either.

“Ready to go, Commander,” Kennedy reported into his thoughts.

Ferrol shifted his attention back to his own readouts and nodded. “Looks good,” he agreed. “Let’s do it.”

Deftly, Kennedy eased them out of the hangar, swung away from the hull, and headed up the shimmering rein lines toward the patch of starless sky that was Man o’ War.

They reached the space horse’s curved side to find a stockfloor of activity already in progress. Floodlights from three outlying lifeboats illuminated the area where a hundred-meter-long cylinder was already pushing outward from the dark gray skin.

Surrounding it, spacesuited Tampies were snipping carefully through the tightfitting webbing, giving the bulge room to expand. Fifty meters away, two more lifeboats stood by, the shimmer of slack webbing between them. It was to this group that Kennedy directed their boat, where they would have both a bird’s-eye view of the final stages of the calving and would be in position to link up with the brand-new space horse as soon as it was secured.

As yet there was hardly enough data to define a “textbook” space horse calving; but if one was ever written, Ferrol decided, Man o’ War’s would probably be close to the mark. Two and a half hours after the bulge first appeared the space horse’s skin abruptly split, opening like a long toothless zipper along the calfs entire hundred-meter length. Seconds later the new space horse drifted free, a shiver rippling through its lighter-colored skin the only sign of life. In theory even such a young space horse had enough telekinetic strength to play havoc with the web boats, but in practice it had never happened and this time was no exception. The calf floated docilely as the boats completed their capture; swinging in right behind them, Kennedy caught the bundle of rein lines in the lander’s forward grapple.

Seated to Ferrol’s left and a row behind him, Sso-ngu stiffened and then relaxed as the rows of tiny indicator lights on the amplifier helmet flicked to green. “That’s it, Amity,” Ferrol said into the mike. “Contact’s made. Looks solid.”

“Very good, Commander,” Roman’s voice came back. “Better pull it back a little, as soon as you can. Hhom-jee? Any sign of trouble with Man o’ War?”

“Manawanninni is fine,” the Tampy’s voice cut in. “His recovery is nearly complete, and he shows no sign of stress.”

Ferrol snorted under his breath. “Glad to hear it,” he said dryly. Their third calving run had resulted in what Hhom-jee had described as “mild stress,” and it had taken him and Sso-ngu half an hour to calm the space horse down. He had no desire to be out in a flimsy lander the next time something like that happened. “So. I guess we’re ready to try this.”

“I guess we are,” Roman agreed, with only a slight hesitation. “We’ll move a few kilometers away from you first, give you plenty of room. Just in case there’s a problem.”

Ferrol stole a glance at Demothi. There were lines of tension showing through the placid serenity in his face. “Good idea,” he agreed. “By the way, have you picked a name for the calf yet?”

“I thought we’d just go with ‘Quentin,’ since this is our fifth calving.”

“Not particularly inventive.”

“Our files fail to list the original Man o’ War’s progeny,” Roman said, just a bit tartly.

Ferrol grimaced. In the excitement of the calving, he’d almost forgotten that he and Roman were on opposite sides of the war here; that the captain would almost certainly see a success by Demothi as a dangerous destabilization of the fragile truce Amity’s breeding program had provided to human/Tampy relations. “Quentin it is, sir,” he said.

For a few minutes there was silence, and Ferrol felt occasional tugs as the calf began its first, tentative movements. Most of that motion was away from the lander, and Ferrol watched as Kennedy carefully played out the rein lines to their full half-kilometer length. As if she’d hooked a rare and giant fish… He shook the image from his mind. “Better get on with it,” he told her.

“Right.” Kennedy gave the instruments a leisurely scan. “Okay. Rein lines all the way out and tight; Amity’s just passed the five-kilometer mark. They’re slowing now to zero-vee relative… all our cameras are on and transmitting.”

“We’re in position, Commander,” Roman’s voice confirmed. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“Yes, sir.” Ferrol turned to Demothi, sitting quietly there between Sso-ngu and Wwis-khaa, and braced himself. “Go ahead.”

Sso-ngu removed the amplifier helmet and offered it to Demothi; with only the slightest hesitation, the other took it and placed it carefully over his head. Ferrol held his breath… and his brain had just enough time to register the indicators’

abrupt switch to red—

And he was slammed hard into his seat as Quentin bolted.

“Sso-ngu!” he snapped, his body automatically gauging the acceleration at about a gee. The calf’s full strength, probably—whatever Demothi had done, he’d done a damn good job of it. An instant later Quentin changed to a sideways motion, hurling Ferrol against his harness. The roar of maneuvering jets filled the lander; clamping his jaw tightly to protect his teeth, Ferrol watched as the two Tampies and Demothi fought to retrieve the helmet as it swayed erratically around them on its supporting cables. Quentin changed direction four more times before Wwiskhaa finally got a firm grip on the helmet and jammed it over his head. The lights changed, and the wild run began to ease up.

“Kennedy, figure out our course,” Ferrol ordered as soon as he could safely open his mouth again. “We’ll want to curve back to the Amity—”

“Ferrol—the Amity,” Kennedy cut him off. “It’s gone.”

“It’s what?” Ferrol stabbed at his display controls. A complete steradian sweep showed nothing the size of a spaceship out there. “It can’t be gone,” he said, immediately cursing himself for making such an asinine statement. Relax, he ordered himself harshly. They wouldn’t just Jump off and leave us. There’s a good and proper explanation here. Somewhere. “Are we still in the 11612 system?”

“Quentin’s supposed to be too young to Jump,” Kennedy reminded him, hands playing over keys.

“I know what he’s supposed to be—”

“And anyway, the spectrum matches,” Kennedy added as the computer finished its analysis.

Ferrol pursed his lips. The shock was fading, and he could feel his brain starting to work again. “Did you hear anything on the radio or laser?” he asked her.

She shook her head. “I was running the jets most of the time to try and smooth some of that out,” she reminded him, already keying the recorder rewind. “A short transmission could easily have been lost in the noise… here we are.” She listened a moment on her own headset, then keyed for speaker.

Roman’s message was indeed brief. “Lander—Ferrol—Man o’ War’s spooking.

Hhom-jee can’t hold it—we’ll be back—” The voice and hum of Amity’s carrier cut off simultaneously.

Kennedy looked at Ferrol. “I think,” she said dryly, “we’ve just made a brand new discovery about space horses. Isn’t science wonderful?”

“Just terrific,” he agreed. “How about it, Sso-ngu?” he asked, turning to face Demothi and the Tampies. “You want to tell me why Man o’ War would suddenly spook and Jump when Quentin was the one who was scared?”

Demothi frowned. “What makes you think he would know—?”

Ferrol silenced him with a look. “Sso-ngu?”

“I do not know,” Sso-gnu replied. “I know that sometimes emotions can be communicated between nearby space horses; that is all.”

“Telepathy?”

Sso-ngu gave the short fingers-to-ear gesture that was the Tampy shrug. “What is telepathy?”

Kennedy chuckled. “Telepathy: any method of communication we don’t yet understand.”

Ferrol snorted; but she was right. And anyway, the method hardly mattered at this point. “All right, then, try this one,” he said to Sso-ngu. “Assuming Quentin’s panic was somehow transmitted to Man o’ War, why did Man o’ War Jump instead of coming to Quentin’s aid?”

“You’re anthropomorphizing,” Demothi said stiffly. “You can’t expect a space horse to act like a human mother.”

“Mmo-thee is correct,” Sso-ngu said. “Perhaps Manawanninni heard only the calf’s fear and Jumped as the calf wished to do.” His face twisted even more than usual.

“Humans do not understand such complete sharing of feelings.”

“No, I think the noble Tampy empathy is probably beyond us,” Ferrol grunted.

Something on Kennedy’s board beeped. “Is that the Amity?” he asked, turning to scan his own displays.

Kennedy shook her head. “No—one of the outrider boats has found us with a comm laser. Basically repeating the captain’s message.”

Ferrol hadn’t thought about the fact that the three outriders would have been left behind, too. “Might as well head back to join them,” he told her. “Figure a course for Wwis-khaa to follow—I’ll get our laser set up and tell them we’re on our way.”

“Assuming Wwis-khaa can get Quentin to obey,” Kennedy reminded him.

Ferrol glanced at the Tampy, noted the glowing rows of tiny green lights on the helmet. “I think anyone who can manage a wild space horse should have no problems with Quentin,” he assured her. He turned back—

“But Wwis-khaa won’t be Handling Quentin,” Demothi said. “I will be.”

Slowly, deliberately, Ferrol turned back again. Demothi had drawn himself up to his full height, an affectation which looked even more ridiculous while strapped into a lander seat than it had when standing upright in the captain’s office. “What was that?” he asked mildly.

“I said I’ll be Handling the calf,” Demothi repeated. “My orders from the Senate and the Admiralty—”

“You had your chance,” Ferrol cut him off, a flash of anger boiling through him.

With all that had happened since Quentin bolted, he’d almost forgotten that Demothi’s failure to control the calf was the end of a dream. The end of his dream… “You had your chance, and it’s over.”

“It wasn’t a fair trial.” Demothi’s usual passive expression had vanished, replaced by an odd combination of determination and pleading. “It was a new experience, both for me and for Quentin, and neither of us had a chance to adjust. I’ve been thinking it through, and I believe I know what I did wrong.” He took a deep breath.

“Please, Commander. Just one more chance.”

“In twenty-four hours or so,” Kennedy murmured, “Quentin’ll be fully capable of Jumping.”

Ferrol looked sharply at her, the Senator’s veiled warnings about her flooding back.

She looked back at him, nothing but mild questioning on her face…

And she did, unfortunately, have a damn good point. If Demothi was ever to have a second chance, it had to be while the calf was still too young to Jump. “All right,”

he ground out, giving an extra tightening tug on his harness. “One more chance, and that’s it. Wwis-khaa, give him the helmet. Demothi, you concentrate on setting up a stable contact before you try anything fancy like moving—and if you feel Quentin panicking you take the helmet off damn quick. Got that?”

“Yes.” Demothi gave him a lopsided smile. “I won’t fail.”

Right, Ferrol thought sourly. Demothi accepted the helmet from Wwis-khaa and slid it over his head. The indicator lights blinked uncertainly, each flicking between red, orange, and green several times before finally settling down to green. The lander rocked gently once, but nothing worse happened; and as the lights continued their progression Ferrol had the eerie sense of watching history in the making.

Demothi was going to make it… and then Ferrol dropped his eyes a fraction and focused on Demothi’s face.

The man looked like he was going to, explode.

“Sso-ngu!” Ferrol shouted… but he was too late. With another spine-wrenching tug the lander pulled sharply to the left. Ferrol’s eyes came back to focus to find Ssongu reaching for the helmet, pulling against the lander’s acceleration to try and get it off Demothi’s head. The maneuvering jets kicked in again, and as they did so another lurch twisted the lander around, throwing Ferrol’s head to face the side viewport and the dim red star visible there.

He was still facing that direction when the star vanished.